Signals From Space
DATA COLLECTED FROM DIRT ORBITS 1920 - 1926
Are we alone in the universe? Though we’d colonized the two nearest star systems, we still had no answer. But six years ago, that changed.
We had long been listening, searching the sky for signs of extraterrestrial intelligence. One particular planet of interest was a rocky world orbiting a G-Type main sequence star. Previously, we had gotten only radio silence from this planet, but this time was different.
The first signals were purely auditory in nature. Our linguists began racing to decipher the aliens’ language.
We found there was a certain sequence of words often said at particular times corresponding with the rotational period of the planet (which we were able to figure out from the redshift of the signals). And a certain word in that sequence changed with every rotational period of that planet. From this, we were able to work out the aliens’ numerical system and words for measuring time.
Once we were able to piece together a working language, we were able to learn a great deal about the humans and their planet which they called “Dirt.” The signals we were receiving were of three types: “music,” “talk shows,” and short informational segments about various human items.
Music was a type of encryption, the level of which we had never before encountered. Each sentence made sense, but this music often to produce a coherent message, but most fascinating was the underlying noise patterns. None of our cryptologists have been able to work out their meaning, but it likely holds the key to understanding this “music.”
The talk shows, featured normal communication between humans, and from these were we able to glean a great deal of knowledge about them:
Humans have limbs called arms, at the ends of which are hands and mitts with claws. We know that humans have claws because they often talk about “clawing one’s way to the top” or “fighting tooth and claw.”
Humans have cats and dogs, which like humans have legs and claws. However, they also have a body part called a paw. Humans treat these cats and dogs like their offspring, so some of our scientists have speculated that they are a larval form of humans. Others believe they are livestock. It is also possible that both are correct, which conjures a horrific picture of humans cannibalizing their offspring. One of the more outlandish explanations is that humans change sex throghout their lifetime, starting as female “kittens,” and later becoming male “cats,” though this contradicts previous theories about what cats are.
Another species native to Dirt is the horse. It is used as both transportation and livestock. Humans often say “I am so hungry, I could consume a horse,” but they probably didn’t consume an organism large enough for transport all at once.
One type of human we have had difficulty understanding is the criminal. They perform various activities, which on the surface are harmful to society. Yet, they are taken away by the police on the last car of a train, to be stored in various containers (the jug, the can, the pen, or the cooler) supposedly until they are again required. The police are called “coppers” and “the heat.” We believe this is a reference to metal projectile weapons and energy weapons respectively. We suspect that these are different types of military and that criminals perform their services for the purpose of war simulation.
I’ve compiled a database with our full report, but further study of humans is recommended to fill in the gaps in our understanding. While we aren’t yet sure about their threat level, the advanced encryption, heat weapons, and constant war simulations are worrying.